


By Starlight

by pherede



Series: Livewrites [16]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cousincest, F/M, Immortal Elves Do What They Want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 07:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherede/pseuds/pherede
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the youth of the world, Maeglin and Idril find forbidden ways to break their own hearts. A snippet written for a livewrite prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Starlight

They never tease him about her. Even Maedhros, with the intensity of his smile and the hopeless way he sighs when some lady (or young lord) catches his eye, is given his share of mockery; the twins are relentless, and Celegorm loves to see his brothers’ heckled wrath.

But for months now, Maeglin has met Idril by starlight, and sung to her and listened to her sing; and it galls him that he feels such terrible things, that he lies sleepless and anguished, and that his desires are so wrong and so wicked that he will never be teased for them. 

And now they sit, looking to the far-distant light of some planet cresting the horizon; or Idril looks, and Maeglin looks at her, longing and sick with the longing. 

Because he knows no-one has touched her, and because he suspects she will not discern his longing from his touch, he lifts the weight of one lock of her hair, pulls it back from where it drapes over her shoulder; and in the process his fingertips touch her skin, his shadow on her clavicle in the starlight, and he sees in crystal perfection the hitch of her breath and the way she stills at that touch.

"There are so many things I do not know," she says, her voice low and measured, her face turned sidelong to shield her eyes from his interpretation. "What lies beyond the Hill and the Sea, what stories are told in the Halls of Mandos— I am young and innocent. But, cousin, I know a few things, and I know what you long for, and also what is heavy in my heart."

She looks at him, and there is such dark joyful promise in her eyes, and she adds: “Teach me, Maeglin, more of these things I do not know,” and he kisses the upturned corner of her mouth because it is the last thing he can do before all boundaries between them are broken.

The corner of her smile is sweet; her mouth, when he tastes it, is sweeter, and there are sweeter things besides to be tasted, skin and slope of skin, the shapes of breast and navel, the shuddering reticulations of her most intimate flesh. And all these things he tastes, and drinks like wine, and tries to shut away the knowledge of what he is doing.

For she is, in her innocence so readily shed, the most ruinous thing he in his own innocence has ever seen. She is sweeter than song (how she cries out) and sweeter than honey (liquid upon his tongue) and sweeter than starlight (the morning star forgotten upon the lip of the world, the tales and customs of ages under the twilight forgotten for her sake) and he forgets all else, brothers and laws and wisdom and hope, against the taste of her flesh, against the mockery he makes of himself in his wickedness and his love.


End file.
